Like the First Morning ... a Hymn to the North Fork Sunrise

The birds were singing flat-out this morning in the garden. Growing up in the rolling farmland of the Midwest, I am awed time and again by the long and golden North Fork light.  It gifts us early — as subtly poetic as the Grecian "rosy-fingered dawn" — and again before day's end.  Shadows from the picket fence create a rhythmic study in black and white on the front sidewalk. Though the garden's  first spring flowering is past,  I revel in the intensity of the green. Japanese ferns lift graceful fronds to the sky, delicate white tinged leaves and one solitary clump an intense watercolor of wine and gray. The sturdy concord grapevine on the fence is in the throes of bud break, its gnarled new leaves unfolding like a flower to the rising sun. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. How truly fortunate we are to call this place ‘home’.